Demo

https://x.com/TomCrean/status/1880294248576393338 Not saying Crean is taking a shot at this IU team, but if the shoe fits…..

Yeah, it’s interesting to watch the extent to which we’ve already started punting on the character stuff before the job’s even open. I mean, Beard, Pearl, Wade, c’mon. I am 100% confident that there are multiple really great options who aren’t time bombs for school embarrassment.

Oh, for sure. There are great career assistants and they’re gold. Norm Roberts is a perfect example. But they better be relentless workers who help create that culture of work and I don’t think he’s that, though obviously Woody doesn’t exactly contribute to that either. Calbert story: When he was on Crews’ staff at SLU, Crews would actually make fun of him in press conferences. Stuff like, “Can’t believe I’m here talking to you guys and Calbert’s already home.” Obviously he was kidding, but that always stuck with me.

I’m sure loyalty to Woody plays some small part, but that’s not it. Cheaney’s a coaching dilettante. I don’t mean that as critically as it sounds, but he likes doing some of the stuff and he likes working with the kids and being around the game, but he’s not some grinder. He’s happy as a clam doing what he’s doing and he has no interest in doing more. That’s been his entire coaching career. Actually, you can probably argue that, as awesome a guy as he obviously is, having someone with his mindset on staff is a pretty clear indicator of a problem.

I don’t get your point here at all. “players quit on their coach” is an indictment of the coach and not the players, and “a program with this kind of noise” is like talking about Everest and “a mountain with this kind of snow.” It’s just a factually accurate statement of conditions that need to be dealt with as part of the climb. I don’t see any shift of onus in any way.

If this is accurate and those teams shot 122 free throws in 55 mins, I don’t need to see the game, those refs need to never work again.

Given that the thing is pretty inevitable at this point, this guy’s take is the equivalent of, “Christmas is coming and it’s coming in December.”

Apparently, Penn St interviewed Ephraim Banda after Haines. So maybe he ends up there, but it doesn’t sound like it was necessarily a confirmation interview.

Took the night off from games and Woody bashing, though that will never get old, and watched the documentary, “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song”, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Kind of an unusual structure in that it uses the various stages of the evolution of “Hallelujah” from origin to cultural quasi-phenomenon as kind of a touchstone for the stages of Cohen’s career. But it works and if you’re into Cohen it’s well worth the time. Gotta confess: there is no tour I regret missing more than Cohen’s farewell tour. It’s always looked like a straight up singular experience.

I just spit my coffee. I hope you’re satisfied.

Good for Keith. Also sheds a bit of light on something I’ve been curious about for a while: how much HC’s at the basketball factories make. Enough for a guy like Smart, who was a probably 350-400k guy at Arkansas. Imagine not that much, but clearly enough.

How the F did I miss that? Thank you.

You’re right, of course. Stevens has the sort of flexibility that we all dream of. But since idle speculation is the nature of the beast around these parts, my guess is if David Bonderman ends up securing the Seattle NBA expansion franchise which is inevitably coming, and it’s hard to imagine it would be anyone else, I will be very, very surprised if Stevens isn’t the EVP there with an ownership stake. I think he’s outgrown coaching. But we shall see.

I don’t if anyone else has looked for this, but this is the full track of the music from the B1G commercial. Interesting choice. A 10 yo largely unlistened to track from a smallish Indie band. Ok song, though. Overproduced for my taste, but not bad.

Incoming: Dallas Cowboys Head Coach Deion Sanders

If Rothstein wanted to make this IU fan take a leisurely stroll into traffic, comping May to Beilein is just the ticket. Thanks, Jon.

Mazel Tov to the Roarke family. So, 5 weeks pregnant as of January 6? I thought I enjoyed the Purdue beatdown, but Kurtis appears to have enjoyed it more.

https://x.com/KySportsRadio/status/1878302544360866296 Demo’s Paradox: When a school you loathe hires a guy you like so much that it makes you loathe them even more.

In the past I would have agreed, but this one was different than most of the other bad losses in that in this one they straight up quit. Watching Reneau giggling on the bench down double digits, and I’m not busting him specifically, was emblematic of where this team is. I think the best you can say is they’re tuning him out.

https://x.com/SWiltfong_/status/1878179539395788815 The ULM coach gets it.

https://x.com/tsnmike/status/1878099437165117880 Really entertaining thread of DeCourcy slapping around a bunch of guys critical of the new format like a speed bag. Big fan of Mike.

https://x.com/CBB_Central/status/1878118420144648239 Dude makes my freaking skin crawl. Yeah, what NFL/NBA agents do and what NIL agents do are EXACTLY the same.

RIP to R&B legend Sam Moore, of Sam and Dave fame. 1 of the best-selling R&B acts ever. If you want to check out a very cool music doc, seek out “Only the Strong Survive.” It’s about a reunion show of Stax Records artists maybe 20 yrs ago and it’s terrific. Sam Moore was great in it.

How much NIL does some school want to give Ewers? 6 mil? Guess it doesn’t matter since it’s uncapped, but if you’re gonna give that kind of Jack to a guy shouldn’t he be a GUY?

Got to watch Hall at a showcase event a few weeks ago. He’s a really good athlete who competes his a$$ off. His skill level may not get to high major by ‘26, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he takes the Javon Small path and ends up a big-time mid-major kid who becomes a serious portal target for HM’s as maybe a junior.